Most of my Magic The Gathering-related articles are based on some sort of power scaling. I generally try to use my knowledge of the game and its many formats to determine whether a card is powerful or not. This time, however, I have no such scale to fit. This will be my most controversial article because it is entirely based on what I think is fun. This will be a list of my favorite commanders. I have played most of these commanders for years, and I will explain why in each section.

Magic The Gathering: Most Fun Commanders

1. Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire

This is my favorite commander of all time. I have played my Vaevictis deck for close to 10 years now. I play Vaevictis as a permanents-only deck so that his ability can never fail to flip something onto the board. It’s so exciting watching the chaos unfurl as I declare my targets and tell everyone to reveal their top cards. I haven’t gotten tired of doing this in 10 years. While my deck has powerful synergy with my commander, it is not solely reliant upon him. It is filled with powerful creatures, and I play them until I win. Magic at its simplest, and I can play 10 games of it in a day and not be tired.

2. Teval, the Balanced Scale

This is a new one, so I cannot claim to have played with it for years and years. However, it has quickly risen to the top of my commander decklists as my second favorite commander. I built it as a dredge deck, using dredge to build a large board of zombies to then use to attack my opponents. I also play a few combos, just in case combat is not an option. It’s a way to play Magic without really playing Magic. It can be shockingly aggressive with some token doublers.

3. Saruman, the White Hand

This is one of the more popular Grixis commanders on EDHRec, and I’m quite certain most people are building it as a midrange deck. Cast powerful instants and sorceries, accrue value, and attack with your Orc Army. Now, I did something similar, but I included Fling effects. There is nothing more funny than hitting someone for lethal with your 30/30 Orc Army and then flinging it at someone else for double lethal. It’s a little generic of a deck, but I still have a great time playing it. It also gives me an excuse to run Shark Typhoon, and I’ll take any excuse to run that card.

4. Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd

I claim no originality points here, I built a blink deck with the puppy. That does not diminish how much fun it is to play, however. It is always amusing to have an opponent kill Phelia before your turn, shrug, recast her, and then continue with your turn. They always forget that she has flash. In my experience, it is common to end up playing Mono White control with your dog flickering removal permanents over and over. You can also play Containment Priest to permanently exile their creatures. I am not running it in mine because I like flickering my creatures primarily.

5. Imoen, Mystic Trickster

The initiative is such an interesting way to approach a game of Magic The Gathering; acquiring it and then holding the line to accumulate value is fun. I love it when my primary source of card advantage is in my command zone. It alleviates mainboard pressure for card advantage engines, and you can play more random nonsense. I run her with Noble Heritage for some politicking that can prevent certain opponents from taking the initiative from you. You don’t have to play her with Noble Heritage like I do. There are probably tons of backgrounds that can make super cool initiative decks.